The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1887-04-30
TYPHOID FEVER.
Parallel Views Of DR.. Piper, of Towson
town, and DR.. Bouardel, of Paris.


town, and DR.. Bouardel, Of Paris.
Under date of March 10th, 1887, DIR. G. w.
Chancellor, Secretary of the Maryland State
Board of Health, wrote from Paris to the Mary
land Medical Journal as follows:
'I have just received and read with great in
terest the recent report of the Maryland State
Board of Health on the drinking water of the
towns and villages of the State, made with refer
ence to the incidence of typhoid fever. The re-
port which, it is understood, emanated from the
pen of DR.. Jackson Piper, the able president of
the Board, is in the line of the work now being
performed by the Sanitary Commission for the De-
partment Of the Seine, composed of such savants
as Pasteur, Brouardel, Durant, Claye, St. Claire
Deville, Girerd, Wurtz, Berand and others, who
have made an elaborate report on the existance
and causes Of typhoid fever in the city and sub
urban villages of Paris. Supplementary thereto
DR.. Brouardel has published in Les Annales DHy-
giene Pubtque, for February, 1887, Gan inquiry
into the epidemic of typhoid fever at Pierrefonds
in August and September, 1885,"
"The conclusions reached by DR.. Piper and
Brouardel identical, that if one did not know
their respective reports were published simulta-
neousy, three thousand miles apart, it might well
be believed there was something more than mere
coincidence in the similarity of views.
"Below will be found the conclusions of each
author, as to the production and distribution of
typhoid fever:
FROM DIR. PIPER's REPORT.
"The disease proceeds from the presence of the
typhoid germ communicated to well water by some
patient sick of the fever, whose excreta have
found their way into the water and germinate
therein"
"Conditions which will lead to the spread of
the disease are such as the probable influence of
storm of rain in driving impurities out of the
ground into our water supplies, or through the
instrumentality of ground air passing into our
habitations, and its reception by population in
a condition to receive such germs of diseases"
"The only safety is to make a radical change;
this would be to close the wells now in use."
GLOW many on reading this report will say: Il
told yon MS 50 s,. ~ is not my well always knew
or, my father and grandfather and great. grand
father drank this water and breathed this air, and
they are living yet! Our fathers, no doubt, drank
bad water and escaped, but there are factors of
disease existing now which they knew not of.
With them it was visitation of Providence, with
us it is visitation of fifth, with its accompanying
myriads of zymotic germs"
FROM DIR. BRoUARDEL's REPORT.
at is quite possible for the water of wells to be
contaminated by the infiltration of dejections
through the soil. The germs oftyphoid fever pa
tients, projected with f@cal discharges, have been
found to multiply rapidly in both soil and water,
and become source of fatal epidemics."
"We do not say that water is the only source of
propagating typhoid fever: Direct contact; food
which contains the specific micro organisms; the
air in certain condition Of humidity all these
may be concerned in communicating the malady;
but water is unquestionaby the most active, the
most powerful, and above ALL by the rapidity with
which it disseminates the morbifc germs, the
most dangerous source of the disease"
'To arrest an epidemic of typhoid fever, it will
suffice to close the wells of drinking water which
have been poisoned by infiltrations of facal
matter"
ave constantly hear such objections these
1T cannot be the water, for and my family have
drank and continue to drink the water, and ,0e
have not contracted the disease An analysis of
the facts, however, is sufficient reply to these
objections. The reception of the morbifc infu-
ence is personal to each one, depending upon age,
the conditions of previous or actual health, etc.
The dose, to speak, of the virus introduced or
inoculated has also an influence on the morbid
manifestations which result from its absorption.
Again, some of the mobid germs live in water a
certain time, then disappear, and their activity
and virulence will vary with the age of the COL
ony. There are various other circumstances,
moreover, which will afford immunity more or less
complete and prolonged"